Admission (37 page)

As Sartre wrote in his play No Exit, hell is other people. This play illustrates the theory of existentialism, which is the
philosophy that since God is dead, we are all ultimately responsible for everything that happens to us. This philosophy is
valid in my opinion. When I first read Sartre’s play, I realized that other people are cowards who hide behind religion and
rules and laws. They think that their lives are not really up to them, and this makes them lazy and complacent. Since then,
I have been reading the great works of philosophy on my own, starting with the Apology of Socrates which shows that it is
important to stand up for what you believe in even if everyone else thinks you’re wrong. After one year of intense study,
I began to think of my own philosophy. I call it metaexistentialism, and it builds on the profound insights of Socrates and
Sartre. My first book, Dionysus Novus: A Treatise on Agony and Ecstasy, is almost complete and I hope to publish it soon.
It argues that we are most real when we experience intense emotions, and that those who are not capable of intense emotion
live lives that are mediocre and sad. In college I hope to develop these ideas, and possibly teach courses in philosophy and
literature to impart my philosophy to others. I have found that other people often find it hard to understand my theories.
But they are not professional philosophers, and so that is to be expected. I look forward to studying with important professors
who will definitely understand what I am saying.

“Only if room.”

The Fannie Lou Hamer essay had not turned up in the database, but Portia, reading through it again, could not let go of her
suspicions. Misspelling both the title and author of your favorite book, as this Rhode Island girl had done, was pretty close
to unforgivable on a college application, but it was the disparity between this carelessness and the superbly fluid, well-constructed—and
correctly spelled—essay that bothered her. There was little else noteworthy in the application. The girl was a strong student
who’d taken summer classes at Brown and played squash. She did like the fact that the girl had written about Hamer, not a
more obvious civil rights figure—that counted for something—but in the end she could not disentangle herself from that
Pride and Priviledge
. “Only if room.” And there would not be room.

The “national judo champion” did not appear anywhere on the Web site of the United States Judo Federation. Portia looked through
the application again and found nothing to outweigh this information. She marked the “Unlikely” box, effectively concluding
the matter.

Which left… the application with the unchecked disciplinary waiver. It was three-thirty in the afternoon when she picked up
the phone, summoning what she could recall of the counselor from their meeting last May. No, April, on a swing through Boston:
Noble and Greenough, Milton Academy, a charter school in Roxbury run by a heroic woman in her sixties, and Porter Country
Day School, Portia’s final stop. The college counselor was in her late thirties, small with blond hair blown straight and
an accent, Portia remembered thinking, more New York than Boston. Her name, right on the secondary school report, was Elisa
Rosen. She picked up quickly, as if she’d been waiting by the phone, and if she sounded initially distracted, the utterance
of the word
Princeton
made her snap to attention.

“Of course I remember,” she said with great warmth. “You had a name from Shakespeare. Juliet? Helena?”

“Portia.”

“Yes! The quality of mercy. Very appropriate for an admissions officer.”

Portia nodded. It was not the first time she had heard this.

“How can I help?” said Elisa Rosen.

“Oh, I just had a quick question about one of your seniors.”

“You’ve got about twenty from us this year.”

“Yes. His name is Sean Aronson? I wanted—”

“Ah.” The warmth in her voice had fled, quite suddenly. “And what about?”

“This may have been nothing,” she said carefully. “I noticed that the disciplinary action question wasn’t checked. It’s not
a huge deal.” She listened into the silence. Which grew. “Unless,” Portia said, frowning, “it is.”

More silence.

“Ms. Rosen?”

“Elisa, please,” the woman said. “I’m thinking about this.”

Portia, now thoroughly alert, sat waiting, the application open before her, reading and rereading the question in question,
as if she did not know it by heart.

“You know,” Elisa said abruptly, “I think… would you mind terribly if I phoned you back in a few minutes? I’d like to phone
you back.”

“All right,” said Portia, giving her the direct line. She hung up the phone and opened the application to the first page.
Dad, an ophthalmologist, went to Brandeis. Mom, a homemaker, went to Wheaton. Two sibs, both older, one in college, one in
medical school. Swimming—lots of swimming—tennis. Probable major: economics; possible career plans: law. Summers: tennis pro,
work for Dad, calculus and history at Andover. One essay about his swim coach, one about tutoring a neighbor’s child who had
trouble with math. His favorite movie was
Donnie Darko,
the single most cited film in this year’s “Few Details” section (trailed only slightly, incredibly enough, by
The Princess Bride
). She’d had the impression that
Donnie Darko
was a horror film until some boy from Maine wrote an essay about why he loved it. Now she’d concluded it was merely bizarre.

The phone rang, and Portia noted the caller ID on her phone, which was not, surprisingly, the school she had just phoned,
but 617, the right area code. Tentatively, she answered. “Portia Nathan.”

“It’s Elisa Rosen.”

“Oh yes. Hello, Elisa.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t talk. I wanted to have this conversation on my cell.” She laughed shortly. “I’m actually in my car right
now.”

By this time, Portia was paying very close attention. “I take it there’s an issue here.”

“Oh yes. And I decided, if any of you ever asked, I was going to answer. You’re the first one to call, by the way. Congratulations,”
she said with deep sarcasm.

Portia found a piece of notepaper on her desk and wrote the name of the counselor and the date.

“I must ask you, please, to make this an off-the-record conversation. Can you agree to that?”

Portia considered. Sean Aronson had an Academic rating of 2 and a NonAc 3, smack in the middle of the pool. He wasn’t a legacy,
which vastly decreased the likelihood of a belligerent phone call if he was rejected. She could probably terminate the application
without consulting Clarence. “Well, let’s do this. Let’s have a conversation, and if we come to something I think my boss
needs to hear about, I’ll stop you and you can think about it. All right?”

“Yes,” she said after a minute.

“So what are we talking about here?”

“He got hold of the chemistry final in December. We have no idea how. His teacher has no idea how. Apparently, he sold it
to at least two of his classmates, but we can’t compel him to tell us who they were, which hasn’t done wonders for our morale.
Plus, when I first met with him before Christmas, he very clearly implied that he’d done it before. He wanted us to know he’d
been having his way with the system for a while.”

Portia, listening, turned over the pages of the file to the secondary school transcript. A’s and A minuses, with, appropriately
enough, a single B plus in Foundations of Ethics, junior year.

“So he was suspended, then?”

“Well, that’s just it. His father told us that if we suspended him or did anything to the transcript or the recommendations,
he’d sue the school. He also told our headmaster he was prepared to claim the chemistry teacher had given Sean the answers
as part of an attempted seduction, and he was ready to make a sexual harassment charge. And the chemistry teacher does happen
to be gay, which didn’t help. So we were in meetings for days with our attorney, and we finally felt we just had to let it
go. We had to,” she said defensively. “We didn’t want to. I mean, what I’ve told you, it doesn’t even scratch the surface
of how truly gruesome it was. And both of his references had already sent out their letters, including, I should point out,
his chemistry teacher, who’d written him this glowing recommendation in November. It would have meant contacting eleven colleges
with whom we’ve had good relationships and telling them we had a cheating scandal. But you know what? When it came time for
me to fill out the SSR, I just couldn’t bring myself to check that box. You know? I couldn’t do it. It was my silent protest.”

“I see,” said Portia, writing quickly. “Well, thank you for your candor.”

“I’m in my car,” Elisa Rosen said again. “I feel like I’m in a spy novel. But I didn’t want anyone to hear me talking about
this. We kept the students from finding out, I don’t know how. But if we hadn’t, we’d have been overrun with parents demanding
we throw him out and inform the colleges. They don’t want Sean taking their kid’s place, and I have to tell you, I don’t really
blame them. But you know what I hate most about this whole thing?”

“What?” Portia asked.

“I hate the fact that he’s actually a sweet kid. Seriously, I’ve known Sean for years. You couldn’t meet a nicer guy. Always
smiling, always wants to tell you about some book he’s just read or something he saw in the paper. He’s very popular, but
he’s one of those popular kids who reaches out to the misfits, you know what I mean? And I’m not excusing what he did at all,
but I gotta tell you, I don’t think I’d last a week with a father like that. I mean, angry, angry man. I could hear him screaming
at his son outside in the parking lot after our meeting. I wanted to call Child Protective Services.”

“Okay,” said Portia, frowning.

“So I’m just telling you, this is what happened. And I have no idea what he’ll be like when he gets away from home. I mean,
Sean is really smart, really capable. He can absolutely handle the work at Princeton, and I’m sure he’d be an asset to the
university. But it’s right that you have the information.”

There was a light tap at her office door. Portia looked up.

“Are there any other applicants you’d like to discuss?” Elisa Rosen said hopefully.

“Oh, I’m sure your kids will do great,” Portia reassured her. “This is the one I’ve gotten to so far. If I have any questions,
I’ll call. Hey, listen, Elisa, I really appreciate your talking to me. And I will keep this confidential, I promise.”

“Thank you so much!”

“Okay, I’ve got someone in my office, so I’d better go. Come in!” she said loudly, to underscore this statement.

“I won’t keep you, then,” said Elisa Rosen, as if she’d initiated the conversation.

The office door opened. Rachel stood in the doorway.

“All right,” Portia said, distracted. “Good-bye.”

She replaced the handset and sighed.

“Muhammad comes to the mountain,” said Rachel.

“Would Muhammad like to sit down?”

“Muhammad has brought you a soy latte.”

“Oh. Good. Thanks.” And awkwardly, she took it.

“This is what I’m resorting to,” said Rachel. “You know, they stopped me at the desk. Do I look like an insane parent to you?”

“No, no,” said Portia.

“I had to show my ID! It was like getting carded!”

“It’s policy,” Portia said, apologizing. “We had a man come up last year. He walked right into Clarence’s office and said
he wouldn’t leave till Clarence explained in detail why his nephew hadn’t been admitted.”

“Really?” She seemed surprised. “I didn’t know.”

“Really. He was in there for fifteen minutes before anybody even knew about it. I mean, poor Clarence had no idea if the guy
was dangerous or what. It’s not like we have a secret panic button for campus security.”

“Maybe you should,” she said.

“Well, maybe we should. But we still like to operate under the delusion that everyone understands we do the best we can with
a difficult situation.”

Rachel set down her own coffee on Portia’s desk and eyed the towering stack of folders on the spare chair.

“Let me,” said Portia, moving them. “I have a system.”

“I hope so,” said Rachel, sounding dubious. She sat.

“Thank you,” Portia said, taking the cover off her latte. “I needed this.”

“Well, that’s a lucky break,” said Rachel, launching right in. “I wouldn’t know what you need. I mean, how many messages have
I left for you? I even started dropping by, but you’re never home.”

“It’s reading season,” Portia said, blowing on her coffee.

“That’s bullshit. You always read at home.”

“Well, this year I’m reading in the office.”

“You look terrible.”

“Thank you,” said Portia, deeply hurt.

“Oh, shit. You don’t look terrible. Well, actually, you don’t look great, sweetie. But I couldn’t care less how you look.
I just care if you’re all right.”

Portia sighed. “Fine,” she said dully. “Whatever.”

“I’m furious at him. I told him so. I said, ‘I had no idea you were such an asshole.’”

Portia searched for a response to this and couldn’t locate one.

“I mean, I had her in my house! How could he do that to me? Like I would ever,
ever
have had her at my dinner table if I’d known.”

“They’re your colleagues, Rachel. You’ve got to play nice.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. English departments are known for internal warfare. It’s our stock in trade. Jesus, Portia, I called
you as soon as I heard. I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

She shrugged. Again, she looked in vain for some strong emotion. But nothing. The oddness of this, she promised herself, she
would turn her attention to at some—hopefully distant—point in the future.

“I was surprised,” she said finally. “I didn’t know. Clearly, I should have known, but I didn’t. And now…” She trailed off,
looking intently away from Rachel’s stricken face and then drifting, drifting, searching the bulletin board behind Rachel’s
head to find something to hold on to. Photograph of Princeton’s oldest living graduate at the head of the annual P-Rade, in
a golf cart driven by someone in a tiger suit. Photograph of the baseball team, Ivy League champions, 2003, all of them graduated
by now. Gym schedule for Pilates, yoga, and spinning from the previous spring. Nothing. Nothing.